To help us reach a solution that suits everyone you will need to tell us what you are unhappy about. Tell us also what we can do to make you happy with our service. Your input is crucial and we can’t progress your complaint without it, so please help us as much as you can.

Phoning

If you’re phoning us to complain we’ll try to connect you with a complaint handler straight away. They will ask what you’d like us to do to resolve your complaint and agree an appropriate timescale.

In writing

If you complain in writing one of our complaints handlers will try to call you within 5 working days of our receiving your letter or email. They will discuss what we can do for you and by when in this call. If we can’t reach you on the phone in that time we will write to you to ask for more detail about how we can resolve your complaint or to confirm our understanding of what you have asked.

What happens next

Once we know what you want us to do we will examine whether we can do it. If we do everything you asked of us we will write to you confirming what we’ve done and close the complaint. We will treat any further complaints as new.

If we can’t do what you’ve asked of us we will write to explain why. You can escalate the complaint if you are unhappy with the explanation.

Escalated complaints

Escalated complaints go to the manager of the team dealing with your case. They follow the same process as the initial complaint.

If the team manager is still unable to take the action you want and you remain unhappy with the explanation you can escalate again to a senior manager. The senior manager will again follow the same process. If they are still unable to take the action you want they will send you details of the relevant Ombudsman, with whom you can raise your complaint.

There are some things our complaints process can’t handle, such as dissatisfaction with the decision in your claim. If you try to complain about anything our complaints process can’t handle we won’t register the complaint. But we will tell you what the appropriate route for you to get help is if we can. If you try to complain about something for which another organisation is responsible we will forward your complaint to them and let you know we have done so.

Help us improve GOV.UK

Help us improve GOV.UK

To help us improve GOV.UK, we’d like to know more about your visit today. We’ll send you a link to a feedback form. It will take only 2 minutes to fill in. Don’t worry we won’t send you spam or share your email address with anyone.